The Demon of Mansfeld Manor Read online

  “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I need a break from the road. Wanna stop off for something to eat?”

  “Oh my God, I’m starving. But where are we even? Can we find a place to eat out here?”

  “Well, I’m sure we can grab a blue plate special at the Flying J,” I said.

  “Wow, you really know how to show off for a girl,” she laughed.

  I turned off at the next exit and headed straight into the largest truck stop I could find. We pulled in and parked under the glow of a giant yellow billboard with red text that boasted Fireworks, Cigarettes, Adult Books.

  “This should do the trick, I think,” I said.

  “Hmmm, so are we getting food, or just picking up enough fireworks to burn down that house?” she joked.

  We walked in and took a seat in a brown vinyl booth. We silently thumbed through the menus. Kat dropped the menu on the table and reached across the table to grab my hand.

  “I can’t believe I’m ordering country fried steak at a truck stop,” she said. “Should I post a picture of this meal online?”

  “I guess that depends if you are washing it down with a proper sweet tea or not,” I said.

  Soon, we ordered. She looked over at me and let out a sigh.

  “Okay look, I know this has been a rough topic, but if I am going to be there with David tomorrow, you gotta update me on what’s going on,” she said.

  “Yeah, I s’pose I owe you that much,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, “but if this conversation means you are gonna freak out on me again, you are getting the bill for dinner.”

  We spent the next hour eating and talking through what had happened over the last two weeks. I told her everything I could remember. The only detail I failed to dive into was the part about David’s concern about her and her need to choose a path. I did, however, mention the fact that he had been convinced, based upon the parlor, that she needed to be involved in this.

  The conversation as a whole went very well. She didn’t freak out or disengage at all, which was encouraging. It started to feel like we were pushing past everything.

  By the time we got back to the truck and started driving, everything seemed to be back to normal. She spent a lot of time apologizing for the break between us, but we also spent a lot of time just talking and being us.

  After a couple hours the talking started to fade. I glanced over to see her sound asleep in her seat. Her hand was still holding mine. She was beautiful and completely at peace.

  Still, there was an uncertainty nagging at me. I understood everything she said about why she walked away and I could justify all of it. Certainly, with her mom and everything else, this was stressful. What I couldn’t rationalize though was why she just walked away without trying to talk to me about it all. There was something about it that was unsettling.

  As the miles piled up, so did my apprehension. I couldn’t qualify it or even come up with a reason why, but something was off. I felt it in my gut. I loved her, I cared about her, and I wanted more than anything to be with her, but she frightened me. She frightened me in a way I had never felt.

  I had finally shoved all those feelings aside by the time we got close to Erwin, Tennessee.

  I pulled my truck into the Mountain Inn at just after one in the morning. The parking lot was dimly lit by a few lamps, and it was completely quiet and peaceful. As I put the truck in park, Kat woke up. She stretched and rubbed her eyes.

  “We made it. How was your nap?” I asked, kissing her on the forehead.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep,” she said.

  “It’s okay. You had a long day,” I replied. “I suppose we should check in. Oh, you know I didn’t know you were coming with when I got the reservation. So, I only booked the one room.”

  “Mmmm, I wouldn’t want it any other way,” she replied sitting up to give me a kiss.

  I woke up the next morning to the sun shining through the sheer curtains of the hotel room. Kat lay next to me appearing completely peaceful. The sheet was wrapped around her body like a giant snake leaving only one leg and one arm exposed. I put my hand on the soft skin of her thigh and drew closer to her, giving her a kiss on her cheek. She sighed and stretched a little before kissing me. We were both wide awake by the time the alarm went off.

  “Do we really have to get up?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I think we do,” I said, kissing her. “You know David. He will be texting me a hundred times a minute if we aren’t there on time.”

  A half hour later, we were in the truck, driving to the address David had given me. We drove right through the main street of the quiet town. After turning down a side street, we pulled into the small parking lot of a one-story brick office building. The building was simple. It looked like it had been built in the seventies, and it had no markings on it saying that it was a business of any kind.

  We walked up to the front door, carrying our to-go cups of hotel coffee. When we opened the door, there was a clang of a sleigh bell attached to the door. Seconds later, the interior door of the foyer opened, and there was David.

  “Jim, I’m glad you could make it,” he said, his eyes moving toward Kat with visible surprise. “Katherine, I didn’t expect to see you today but welcome.”

  “Yeah, we figured we’d give you a surprise,” I said.

  He walked us into a large fluorescent-lit conference room.

  “Welcome to the home of Murderous Mary!”

  “Murderous Mary?” I asked. “Who is that?”

  He waved his hand at me.

  “You know I’m not gonna tell you. You gotta do your homework. Nothing to do with you… that I know of. It’s a local thing. But don’t go asking people in town about it. They will not take kindly to some Yankee bringing up that past.”

  “Um… okay, noted,” I looked at Kat and shrugged my shoulders.

  “It is a crazy story really, but I am obviously more into it than most given it was one of my first real cases. Anyway, have a seat.” He motioned to the chairs surrounding the conference table.

  We took our seats at the table. On the opposite side of the table was a massive whiteboard covering the entire wall. Taped on the whiteboard were several photos and lines connecting everything.

  David sat down and took a seat across from us.

  “Okay, Linda will be here in about an hour. I figured I would take this time to update you on what I’ve uncovered.” He gestured to the whiteboard.

  He spent the next half hour explaining everything. In the center of the board, was a crudely drawn cloud with a photo of the Cloudland Hotel. From there, there were several lines drawn across the board, connecting to other sections. Most had to do with other members of the ‘Sovereign Lords’. Then, he got to the line drawn to Samuel. Next to the photo of Samuel was a photo of Ida. Underneath was a photo of a child, their child.

  Most of it was a recap of what we already talked about in regard to his theory about Samuel killing the child. The child being of another father and so on. I wanted to tell him about Kat actually being Sam’s descendant. I looked over at Kat and held back. This was her story and I hoped she would bring it up.

  David picked up a book and tossed it on the table. “This is what we have been looking for. Well, I mean it isn’t black and white of course, but it at the very least tells me we are on the right path.”

  I picked up the book and started thumbing through it. It was old and looked to be written in German. I didn’t recognize any of it, including the name of the author.

  “I don’t follow,” I said. “What is this?”

  “Okay, remember I said that we already know there is a shit ton of evil power at the Villa thanks to Sam? But there was another power there pushing against his. Like an equal but opposite power. So, it was time to look into Ida. This is my start.” He picked up the book. “Long story short, I told you how Ida was in the social spotlight like no other? Just like today, you have paparazzi and all that stuff following celebrities. This is the 193
0s version of that. Just after having her last child, she up and went overseas for like seven years. This book was written as an exposé…memoirs of her chauffeur while she was in Germany. Granted, like any exposé, it cannot be fully taken as the truth. There are certainly embellishments within this.”

  “Okay, so what did you find in there?” I asked.

  “I don’t speak German. So, I have only been able to translate a bit. But here, this is really interesting. It talks about him being required to drive her deep into the Black Forest where she would go off for days at a time. She would return like three or four days later no differently than if she had just gone to the market.”

  “Yeah, not following…so she liked to go hiking in the woods,” I said.

  “Jeez, did you ever take the time to learn anything about history?” he shot back. “Okay okay, I’ll dumb it down for you. The Black Forest in Germany is not like your local forest preserve. It has forever been the center point for many of the witchcraft practices in Europe. Think of it like Jerusalem for the black arts. On the surface, there is a lot of folk legend type stuff around areas of the forest, ghost stories and such. But to anyone who has truly studied witchcraft, much of what we know today originated in that forest. So, if even a shred of this exposé is true on that front, I fear our Ida was developing her own set of supernatural skills.”

  “So we are dealing with two ghosts then?” I asked. “That's fine, I think Ida likes me.”

  He leaned in and whispered in a suddenly serious tone. “It isn’t ghosts that are the trouble. Ghosts are easy. It is almost certain that Ida is there as a ghost, but this is so much more. We are talking about demons, possession, and curses here.”

  Just then, we were interrupted by the clanging of the sleigh bell on the door.

  “Excuse me,” David said as he stood up.

  Moments later David led a woman into the conference room.

  “Jim, Katherine, this is Linda,” he announced.

  15

  Linda walked into the conference room and greeted us. She looked like she was about sixty years old. She was round, short, and had long gray hair, pulled back into a ponytail. She had a brightly colored scarf wrapped around her. She bobbed back and forth as she walked in and sat down. She remained silent for a few moments as her eyes scanned the room.

  “James, how great it is to meet with you,” she said warmly. “And I believe this is Katherine. What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Thank you for agreeing to work with us on this…” I started.

  Linda held up her hand gesturing for me to stop.

  “Please, do not speak. I am trying to get a feel for you both.”

  She slowly continued to look back and fourth between Kat and I. There was a stillness in the air as we anticipated her next words.

  “Before I get started, just to minimize interruption, does anyone have any questions?” she asked.

  “I am just curious as to why we are doing this here as opposed to having you come to the house,” Kat replied. “I would think it would be easier to feel everything going on at the location.”

  “After visiting the house, I realized there was a tremendous amount of power at work there,” David said. “I set this up here so that we could take a slower approach and really understand everything we are feeling. When there is so much power concentrated in one place, it is often difficult to break it down and really tell what is all at play. Here we can understand the foundation to help us when we go to the house.”

  “Have you brought the items, James?” Linda asked.

  I reached into my backpack, pulled out a folder, and slid it across the table to Linda. The folder contained both the letter left on the mantel by the butler and Ida’s letter that was presented to me with the will. As David had instructed, I had to bring something related to the house and the people so that Linda could leverage the residual power of it.

  Linda carefully opened the folder and laid the two letters out before her. She silently looked them over. A moment later, her head jolted up, and she looked frustrated.

  “There is more here,” she said, giving Kat an icy stare. “I feel that you have brought with you another item connected to this house. Please, show me what you have.”

  Kat glanced at me with a look of confusion on her face.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was supposed to bring anything.”

  “My dear, it isn’t what you were supposed to bring,” Linda said. “It is what you did bring. I can feel there is more here,”

  Kat didn’t say a word. She reached into her pocket and retrieved her keys. She took the penny off her key ring and tossed it to Linda. There was an unspoken feeling of trepidation in her motion. She looked over at me.

  “This was my great-great-grandfather’s, is this what you were talking about?” Kat said.

  Linda held it tightly in her palm and closed her eyes before responding.

  “Yes, this is exactly what I felt. Thank you.”

  She pulled out a worn, leather-bound notebook and a pen, setting it on the table. She looked over at David.

  “Let us begin,” she said solemnly.

  Linda closed her eyes and gently moved her hands to each item and then began writing in her notebook. I looked over at Kat, who seemed to be concerned, and shrugged my shoulders. We spent the next hour in silence watching Linda. Not a word was spoken. Linda offered no reaction at all. She closed her eyes and rested her hands on one of the items for a few minutes and then wrote in the notebook. This process repeated multiple times. I caught David a few times looking distracted. He would look back at the whiteboard behind him and then back at the letters.

  Finally, Linda closed the notebook with a loud snap that echoed in the silent room.

  “We are finished,” Linda proclaimed.

  She gracefully slid the penny across the table to Kat and then carefully put the letters back in the folder and slid them across the table to me. David nodded and then looked at Kat and me.

  “Okay, we need to give Linda some time to process everything and reflect,” David said to us. “Please come outside with me,”

  David stood up and opened the door showing us out. He walked outside leaving Linda in the conference room by herself.

  “Whoa, that was intense!” David said as we got outside.

  “What was that?” I asked. “What is going on?”

  “It is just her process man. It takes a lot out of her. We just gotta give her some time to work it all over, and then she will tell us what she saw.”

  “I don’t know what is going on, but that was kinda creepy,” Kat said. “And what was that with my penny? How did she know?”

  David put his hand on Kat’s shoulder. “Do not worry. They are all pieces of the puzzle. She is the best there is at this. She will see everything we need, whether we want her to or not.”

  “So what? Are we just supposed to sit out here until she is ready and calls us back or what?”

  “Nah man, it will be a while. Why don’t you guys go grab some lunch for a bit? I will call you when she is ready. Head to the Dari Ace down the road a piece. Get a taste of Erwin.”

  We agreed and walked over to my truck. As the truck started up, I looked over at Kat.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  “I’m fine. I just…it’s just... this unnerves me a bit. The fact that she knew about the penny was just unreal.”

  She looked up at me with a bewildered look that I hadn’t seen before.

  “I can’t understand it, but there is something to it,” I said.

  “Do you think we should bring up the fact that I am really a descendant of Sam’s?”

  “I thought about mentioning it in the beginning, but I didn’t. I guess I was kinda scared about how you’d react to it if I did.”

  She squeezed my hand and looked at me with a soft smile.

  “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m fine. It’s like you said, I am me, no matter what my lineage says, and I want to solve all this too
.”

  I gave her a kiss.

  “Maybe we should hold that card back a little,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, let’s not bring it up. If Linda can identify something, sure, we’ll confirm it. But right now, I am kinda curious to see if she can.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Hell, yeah. Look, I don’t think it is doing any harm if we hold it. If they can identify it, great. Besides, it would be kinda fun to throw out an explanation for why David was so confused by if you were dark or light.”

  After a few hours, Kat and I were called back to the office. We walked back in unsure of what was going to come out. But we were together, and comfortable. The unknown didn’t seem as frightening as it had before.

  We sat down and were ready for David and Linda to tell us what they had learned.

  “Okay, we are getting somewhere now,” David said, wasting no time. “There are plenty of gaps, but I think we understand the basics of what happened there.”

  “Let's start with Samuel,” Linda said. “As you know, he is at the root of many torments. From what I’ve learned, his motivation was purely the pursuit of power. Power he had with the KGC. The problem with that was this power was not immediate. The KGC was hell-bent on taking over the country in a very long game. In order to maintain this power, the most important thing for him was to produce an heir… an heir worthy of his seat of power. Essentially, an heir he could trust to lead the new world.

  “The trouble all really stemmed from Ida. Ida was not a woman who could be controlled. Her marriage to Samuel was the last decision she made under someone else’s influence. Here you have a strong-minded woman married to a power-hungry tyrant whom she does not love. So, she stood up for herself.”

  Over the next hour, Linda explained how throughout the strained marriage Ida fell in love and conceived a child with her lover. Samuel Jr. was their offspring. Samuel was enraged and killed the child. This action created a rift between the two like never before. Ida became hell-bent on keeping herself separated from Sam in every way. Sam was of course still driven by needing an heir.